Type 1 Diabetes: Is It a Life Sentence? Part 1 of 2

Never do I get more angry and defensive messages than when I write about Type 1 diabetes. (That’s okay—I’m going to talk about it anyway.)

Diabetes costs the U.S. $174 billion per year, more than all our recent wars combined. It’s worth talking about and exploring what can be done!

If I allow a person to tell his story of being no longer insulin dependent, I get accused of “giving people false hope.” I am not suggesting that people abandon their insulin and Metformin, etc. without being under the competent care of a good practitioner. What I am suggesting here is that the body has a profound ability to heal and regenerate. And that there are many diabetics who, with the assistance of an excellent holistic physician, reduce or eliminate insulin dependence. (They virtually always reverse other health conditions that come along with diabetes, as well, as they eat a mostly raw plant-based diet.)

The idea may be tragically erroneous that if the Islet of Langerhans in the pancreas appears to be nonfunctional, a diabetic should sit back, eat whatever he wants, and pump away.  The entire insulin transaction is more complex—involving the brain (according to Dr. Anna Maria Clement), the liver, and the pancreas—and possibly more regenerative, than many doctors imagine who focus exclusively on prescribing insulin, related drugs, and pumps.

While I was recently at Hippocrates Institute, I met Brian Lotkin of Florida, a Type 1 diabetic who ostensibly has no pancreas function, who was taking no supplementary insulin after 3 weeks on the raw vegan diet. He said:

“I am aghast. This whole experience has been an experience in 1 + 1 = 3. I was taking 30-40 units of insulin a day, and now I am taking 8, all background  insulin  to break down fats from what my liver puts into my bloodstream.” [Basal insulin manages the glucose made in the liver whether one eats or not, as opposed to bolus insulin, taken to manage whatever is eaten.]

Brian said to me, “I am taking 10 percent of the insulin I have been taking. My whole life has been counting carbs. Now I am eating 80-90 percent carbs! They are complex carbs.”

Dr. Gabriel Cousens says, “The diet that works the best is high-fiber, high carb, low protein, low fat diet.” Ahh, but all diabetics obsess over carbohydrates as if they are the devil. There is an enormous difference between the carbs in Hostess cupcakes, and the carbs in vegetables. Too few people understand this.

The diet at Hippocrates that Brian had been eating for 3 weeks is juices, wheatgrass, sprouts, lots of leafy greens and vegetables. All plant based, all raw. Hippocrates serves cucumber and celery juice, and so does Tree of Life, which we’ll talk about tomorrow. (Compounds in those two vegetables have special properties helpful to diabetics.)

Dr. Mary Jo Ruggieri, a PhD from Ohio State who was staying at Hippocrates, said to me, “Sunflower sprouts have more useable protein than any substance on Earth.”

This turns conventional, dumbed-down, mainstream media nutrition information on its head. No one at Hippocrates is eating “perfect proteins” (beef, chicken, etc.) and still getting the best protein available, through green foods? Every M.D. doc I know, every personal trainer, even most nutritionists, think that “protein” means primarily animal flesh.

Getting less protein, but very high-quality protein like that found in sunflower sprouts, is ideal.

You really must check out this story of a Type 1 diabetic, posted on the GSG facebook fanpage recently.

The story told here is by the father of one participant in Dr. Cousens’ diabetes reversal program at Tree of Life. After a month in his care, eating a raw vegan diet, all 15 diabetics were off insulin and Metformin. (Two of them were Type 1 diabetics.) More on this tomorrow.

Posted in: Health Concerns